Bobby Crosby drove in a career-high five runs and Chad Gaudin
pitched seven strong innings to power the Athletics to a 13-2
victory over the Royals on Friday night.

Facing the American League's top pitching staff, the Athletics
offensive erupted, producing a four-run sixth inning before
putting the game out of reach with eight runs in the eighth.

"Offensively it was nice to break out with some runs," Oakland
manager Bob Geren said. "It was a close game really until
pretty late when we had the big inning, and then a really big
inning."

Oakland entered the game with a .199 batting average
(31-for-156) over its last five games, scoring just seven runs
in that time. The Athletics nearly doubled that total Friday,
scoring a season-high 13 runs while tying another season high
with 15 hits.

Gaudin (1-1) turned in his longest outing of the season,
allowing four hits, walking one and striking out a season-high
eight in seven innings.

"I was more happy with myself in the sense of my control with
the fastball and being able to get ahead in counts," Gaudin
said. "This was really the first time I felt in control of
everything - the game, myself, my body. It was a great feeling.
It took a while to get back to it but I finally got there."

After allowing two runs through the first three innings, Gaudin
held the Royals scoreless over his final four innings, retiring
the last 12 batters he faced, including seven by strikeout.

"He (Gaudin) threw a nice game," Geren said. "He pitched inside
to lefties real well. I think that set up all his other
pitches and he had a real sharp late-breaking slider. He strung
some strikeouts together with it. That was one of the best
outings he's had in a real long time. It's a good one to build
on."

It appeared the offensive drought would continue for the
Athletics, who managed just one run and four hits through the
first five innings.

However, Jack Cust opened the sixth with a single and Emil Brown
and Ryan Sweeney followed with base hits before Crosby stroked
a two-run double to deep left field, chasing starter Brian
Bannister (3-1) from the game.

"To get something going, get guys on, that's what you try to do
against a guy like Bannister, who's always been pretty tough
against us," Crosby said. "Tonight I just saw the ball well. I
was looking for fastballs away because (Bannister) has that
cutter so you look for hitting the ball the other way and if you
can react on the cutter, that's what I tried to do off him."

Ron Mahay relieved Bannister and allowed both inherited runners
to score. Travis Buck hit a sacrifice fly and Jack Hannahan
singled home the final run with a two-out single to right field,
giving the Athletics a 5-2 lead.

Bannister allowed five runs and nine hits in five innings,
suffering his first loss of the season.

"I expect a couple of times out of every 10 starts, not to feel
good," Bannister said. "And my body was sluggish tonight and my
secondary pitches weren't sharp. My slider especially wasn't
the same tonight.

"I could tell in the first inning that it wasn't going to be one
of my electric nights where I felt really sharp so I battled
through it."

Oakland broke the game open with eight runs in the eighth,
capped by Crosby's three-run home run - his second of the
season.

"Obviously it turned into what ended up being a really ugly
situation," Kansas City manager Trey Hillman said. "Walking
guys is very dangerous and we took ourselves out of any chances
to be able to come back. We took a three-run game to a
way-too-far-to-come-back game."